Idag fokuseras det politiska intresset på klimatfrågor och det visade sig inte minst när Nobels fredpris tilldelades Panel of Climate Change och Al Gore år 2007. Klimatfrågor med fokusering på bland annat energifrågan, biologisk mångfald och hållbar utveckling kommer att vara nyckelfrågor under andra halvan av 2009 när Sverige är ordförandeland för EU. Bidragande orsaker till klimatförändringar är mänskliga utsläpp av växthusgaser. Arbetet med att minska utsläppen sker bland annat genom Kyotoprotokollet, där 160 stater deltar, innehållande bindande åtaganden att minska utsläppen med 5 % fram till 2012. I och med arbetet med att minska växthusgaser är främjandet och utvecklandet av förnyelsebar energi en viktig del, särskilt i form av vindkraft. Kommunernas fysiska planering spelar en viktig roll i detta, t ex i framtagandet av lämpliga områden för etablering av vindkraft. Gävle kommun används som fallstudie och detta arbete ska underlätta förfarandet att ta fram bra beslutsunderlag som varje planerare behöver göra. Syftet med denna studie är att underlätta och effektivisera den fysiska planeringens arbete och väcka medvetenhet för nyttan av GIS. Först sker en sammanställning av en del data som finns tillgängliga på Gävle kommun. Huvudsyftet är att sedan utföra en multikriterieanalys för att hitta lämpliga områden för vindkraftsetablering utifrån sammanställt data. Vindkraft valdes för att det är en viktig del i anpassningsarbetet för att motverka klimatförändringar och har en hög prioritet. Kriterier och motstående intressen till vindkraftsetablering sattes upp och utifrån det utfördes sedan en multikriterieanalys. En fältstudie utfördes för att bedöma resultatets tillförlitlighet och hur resultatet överensstämmer med verkligheten. Resultatet påvisade att det fanns många lämpliga områden för vindkraftsetablering i Gävle kommun och att god överensstämmelse fanns med tidigare framtagna riksintresseområden för vindkraftverk. Fältstudierna visade även på god överensstämmelse med resultatet och verkligheten. Multikriterieanalys är ett kraftfullt verktyg som ger tydliga resultat. Kunskap om metodiken och ämnet, t ex om den ska hitta lämpliga områden för vindkraft krävs god kännedom om vindkraft samt kunskap om data krävs för att metoden ska vara lätt att genomföra. Den ger ett begripligt resultat som har stor genomslagskraft och som det är lätt att ta till sig. Metoden är en väldigt användbar metod för att ta fram bra beslutsunderlag i ett planarbete. / The political focus is today set on questions concerning climate changes and this was proved when Panel of Climate Change and Al Gore were awarded with the Nobel Prize for Peace in the year of 2007. Sweden is the presidency country of the European Union in the second half of 2009 and the main questions are going to be about climate targeted on energy, biodiversity and sustainable development. Some of the things that cause the climate changes are the emission of greenhouse gases made by the human being. To reduce the emission the goal with the Kyoto protocol, accepted by 160 countries, is set to reduce the emission by 5% until 2012. To achieve the goal the development and promoting of renewable energy has an important role, especially wind power. With the aid of physical planning, municipalities have an important role e.g. through compiling basic data for decision-making where suitable areas for wind power are pointed out. Gävle municipality is used as a case study and one of the goals with this thesis is to facilitate the decision that is needed to be made by them who are working with physical planning. Another goal is to awake the awareness of geographical information system potential to be a powerful tool to make physical planning more efficient. As a first part a compilation is made of the data that are accessible in the databases of Gävle municipality. The main issue is to make a multicriteria analysis to find suitable areas for wind power on the compiled data. The theme of wind power was chosen because it is an important part of a sustainable development due to climate changes. Criteria and counteractive interests to wind power were identified and used in a multicriteria analysis. A field study was made to control the result from the multicriteria analysis against reality and there were a good agreement. The result of the multicriteria analysis indicated that there are several suitable areas for wind power within the area of Gävle municipality and this was verified with the areas identified by the County Administration of Gävleborg. Multicriteria analysis is a powerful tool that gives a result that is easy to understand. Knowledge about the method and subject, e.g. finding areas suitable for wind power good knowledge about wind power and data is demanded to make the method easy to perform. The method gives a comprehensible result with a penetrating power and is easy to understand. The method is very useful to compile basic data for decision-making in physical planning.

The pearl oyster Pinctada martensii or Pinctada fucata is the oyster for produce the South China Sea Pearl, and the production of pearl oyster Pinctada martensii plays a key role for the economic and social welfare of the coastal areas. To guarantee both rich and sustainability of providing pearl oyster productions, addressing the suitable areas for aquaculture is a very important consideration in any aquaculture activities. Relatively rarely, in the case of site selection research, the researchers use GIS analysis to identify suitable sites in fishery industry in China. Therefore, I decided to help the local government to search suitable sites form the view of GIS context. This study was conducted to find the optimal sites for suspended culture of pearl oyster Pinctada martensii using GIS-based multi-criteria analysis. The original idea came from the research of Radiarta and his colleagues in 2008 in Japan. Most of the parameters in the GIS model were extracted from remote sensing data (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer and Landsat 7). Eleven thematic layers were arranged into three sub-models, namely: biophysical model, social-economic model and constraint model. The biophysical model includes sea surface temperature, chlorophyll-α concentration, suspended sediment concentration and bathymetry. The criteria in the social-economic model are distance to cities and towns and distance to piers. The constraint model was used to exclude the places from the research area where the natural conditions cannot be fulfilled for the development of pearl oyster aquaculture; it contains river mouth, tourism area, harbor, salt fields / shrimp ponds, and non-related water area. Finally those GIS sub-models were used to address the optimal sites for pearl oyster Pinctada martensii culture by using weighted linear combination evaluation. In the final result, suitability levels were arranged from 1 (least suitable) to 8 (most suitable), and about 2.4% of the total potential area had the higher levels (level 6 and 7). These areas were considered to be the places that have the most suitable conditions for pearl oyster Pinctada martensii for costal water of Yingpan.

Human disturbance as the main factor influencing the habitat of brown bear (Ursus arctos) has occurred frequently with the development of human society. How to reduce and prevent the conflict between human and brown bears is considered as an important question for brown bear conservation, management and public safety. Sånfjället National Park has one of the densest bear populations in Sweden. Many tourists are attracted to visit bears each year. Through this study, the most possibility brown bear denning habitat in Sånfjället National Park was determined by using Multi-Criteria Analysis. A customized habitat distribution map generator was programmed within the Microsoft Visual Basic® for Applications (VBA) in ArcGIS. Three themes were designed in the map generator, i.e., the human impact emphasis weighted, neutral weighted themes and customized weighted theme. Customized weighted theme was produced for user discovering denning habitat results with user-defined weights. Comparing the final maps generated from the human impact emphasis weighted and neutral weighted themes, human influence concentrated in the south area of the National Park. The trails near Sveduterget should be changed to avoid human disturbance in the bear denning period.

The Pre-Project Phase of building construction manages the communication between client organization, user groups and designers. Disconnects and miscommunication in this phase may result in a product that does not fulfill the expectations of the parties involved. It is expected that the adoption of more formal methods can streamline the communication and improve its precision. Based on a literature review, a triage of methods is introduced: (a) a method for initial criteria management, supported by the EcoProP software (developed by VTT in Finland); (b) a method to rationalize and manage criteria in relation to the design organizational instruments, supported by the QFD ProP software (developed by VTT in Finland); (c) a method that supports multi criteria decision making, supported by a range of commercially available software tools. In order to assess the effectiveness of these tools they have been applied in the specific case of Pre-Project Phase of a healthcare facility. A Case Study on a concrete discrete decision problem is dealt with. It concerns the choice between a central medication room and patient room dispenser closets (also known as Nurservers). The Nurservers Case Study is used to evaluate the applicability of the proposed criteria gathering, ranking and decision methods in the Pre-Project Phases daily practices. The claim that these rational methods increase efficiency, precision and satisfaction of the parties involved in this phase is investigated. The thesis evaluates how the introduction of rational methods benefits the communication between stakeholders.

Search and Rescue (SAR) operations aim at finding missing objects with minimum time in a determined area. There are fundamentally two problems in these operations. The first problem is assessing highly reliable probability distribution maps, and the second is determining the search pattern that sweeps the area from the air as fast as possible. In this study, geographic information systems (GIS) and multi criteria decision analysis (MCDA) are integrated and a new model is developed based upon Search Theory in order to find the position of the missing object as quickly as possible with optimum resource allocation. Developed model is coded as a search planning tool for the use of search and rescue planners. Inputs of the model are last known position of the missing object and related clues about its probable position. In the developed model, firstly related layers are arranged according to their priorities based on subjective expert opinion. Then a multi criteria decision method is selected and each data layer is multiplied by a weight corresponding to search expert&rsquo / s rank. Then a probability map is established according to the result of MCDA methods. In the second phase, the most suitable search patterns used in literature are applied based on established probability map. The developed model is a new approach to shortening the time in SAR operations and finding the suitable search pattern for the data of different crashes.

Many countries around the world integrated Renewable Energy Systems (RES) in their future energy plans in order to reduce negative impacts of fossil fuel consumption on the environment. However, RES may as well cause various environmental problems which are mostly related with the geographic locations of these facilities. The aim of this thesis is to create a Geographic Information System-based methodology for evaluating alternative locations for wind, solar and hybrid power plants by using fuzzy multi-criteria decision making. Environmental objectives and economical feasibility criteria for wind and solar systems are identified through Turkish legislations, previous studies, and interviews with General Directorate of Electrical Power Resources Survey and Development. Individual satisfaction degrees for each alternative location with respect to the identified environmental objectives and economical feasibility criteria are calculated using fuzzy set theory tools. Then these individual satisfaction degrees are aggregated into overall performance indexes which are used to determine priority maps for wind and solar energy generation facilities. Finally, maps of priority sites for wind and solar energy systems are overlaid to identify suitable locations for hybrid wind-solar energy systems. The proposed methodology is applied on a case study area composed of USak, Aydin, Denizli, Mugla, and Burdur provinces.

In this study, for the well-known Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method a new approach to interval priority weight generation from interval comparison matrix is proposed. This method can be used for both inconsistent and consistent matrices. Also for the problems having more than two hierarchical levels a synthesizing heuristic is presented. The performances of the methods, interval generation and synthesizing, are compared with the methods that are already available in the literature on randomly generated matrices.

The purpose of this study is to develop a geotechnical microzonation model regarding the suitability of the residential areas in Yenisehir (Bursa, Turkey), which is a currently developing settlement area in a seismically active region. For this purpose, soil properties and dynamic soil behaviors of the study area were assessed. Soil classification, soil amplification, natural soil predominant period, resonance phenomena and liquefaction potential of the study area were evaluated using borehole data and microtremor measurements. The raw data obtained from the previous studies carried out at Yenisehir were used for these assessments. The liquefaction potential for the study area was evaluated both in two-dimensional planimetric and three-dimensional volumetric assessments. Two geotechnical microzonation maps were produced for the study area according to the surface damage due to liquefaction (according to two different methods), soil amplification and distance to streams maps / by using Geographical Information Systems (GIS) based Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis. The weight values were assigned to the layers using Analytical Hierarchical Process method by pairwise comparisons. Evaluating geotechnical microzonation maps produced, the safest areas were found on the northern sites of the study area. The most critical areas were found to be in the middle and the southeast parts of the study area.

Sorting is the problem of assignment of alternatives into predefined ordinal classes according to multiple criteria. A new distance function based solution approach is developed for sorting problems in this study. The distance to the ideal point is used as the criteria disaggregation function to determine the values of alternatives. These values are used to sort them into the predefined classes. The distance function is provided in general distance norm. The criteria disaggregation function is determined according to the sample preference set provided by decision maker. Two mathematical models are used in order to determine the optimal values and assign classes. The method also proposes an approach for handling alternative opt imal solutions, which are widely seen in sorting problems. Probabilities of belonging to each class for an alternative are calculated using the alternative optimal solutions and provided as the outputs of the model. Decision maker assigns the alternatives into classes according to these probabilities. The method is applied to five data sets and results are provided for different performance measures. Different distance norms are tried for each data set and their performances are evaluated for each data set. The probabilistic approach is also applied to UTADIS. The performance of the distance based model and modified UTADIS are compared with the previous sorting methods such as UTADIS and classification tree. The developed method has new aspects such as using distances to ideal point for sorting purpose and providing probabilities of belonging to classes. The handling of alternative optimal solutions within the method instead of a post-optimality analysis is another new and c ritical aspect of the study.

One of the most important factors leading to success of a regional/national cleaner (sustainable) production strategy is sector-focused approach. Due to limited resources and other constraints, it is a necessity to make a prioritization between sectors for cleaner (sustainable) production practices. Thus, within the scope of this study, manufacturing industry sub-sectors in Izmir and in Turkey were prioritized based on various criteria. The results should assist policy makers in the preparation of related sectoral roadmaps and action plans.The prioritization of manufacturing industry sub-sector was accomplished via Multi- Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) method with the integration of recent available data and by taking feedback from the stakeholders. Investigation of the sectoral priorities was carried out both at regional (Izmir) and national (Turkey) level. The criteria used in prioritization of manufacturing industry sub-sectors in Izmir were water and energy consumption, amount of wastewater discharged, amount of solid waste and hazardous waste generated, greenhouse gas emissions, HerfindahlHirschman Index (statistical measure of market concentration), sectoral employment, number of companies, export share, added value and suitability for cleaner (sustainable) production. In the prioritization analysis of Turkey all of the aforementioned criteria for Izmir except Herfindahl-Hirschman Index, number of companies and added value were used.Based on the results of this study, the top five high priority industrial sectors for cleaner (sustainable) production practices in Izmir are basic metal industry, food products and beverages, chemicals and chemical products, other non-metallic mineral products and coke and refined petroleum. In the sectoral prioritization analysis for cleaner (sustainable) production in Turkey textile industry takes the place of coke and refined petroleum. These sectors coincide with the priority sectors identified based on different purposes by other regional and national institutions.